It’s no wonder that Twitter has told developers that the future is not in developing third party apps to manage Twitter activities. It’s no wonder because it looks like Twitter is about to buy TweetDeck for about $50 million which is reportedly $20 million more than Twitter’s sudden soon to be rival UberMedia was offering.
We had asked sources close to the situation about the TweetDeck-UberMedia deal a few weeks ago, and we were told both companies were still talking.
Apparently Twitter saw an opportunity to swoop in and trump the deal.
Why would Twitter want to get TweetDeck away from UberMedia?
TweetDeck is one of the more popular independent third party Twitter applications out there. It accounts for around 13% of all tweets sent out, and is generally the preferred app for Twitter “power users.”
Imagine if UberMedia had gotten their hands on the tool that is responsible for 13% of the tweets that go out. Twitter might lay an egg out of concern that the long hard road to revenue has taken too long and thus left the door open for another player to come in and do what Twitter seems to avoid like the plague, which is making money.
This entire ‘Twitter needs to make money’ story is getting so old that you almost hope that someone comes along to challenge them and maybe figure out what all of these great minds can’t seem to.
Here are some questions for our readers to consider and comment on. Do you think that we are stuck with Twitter and Facebook as the social media kings in the same way we are with Google? Will there be anyone able to touch them? More importantly how willing would you be to change to another service if it were better than either Twitter or Facebook?
What would it take to make you switch to another service? In the end though are Twitter and Facebook somewhat bulletproof even with the specter of MySpace’s spectacular flameout so fresh in the minds of many?
[via Affiliate Pilgrim]
